I think it's inappropriate to tie the definition of "testability" to our
capacity to develop algorithms. That's *machine* testability, not
testability.
Phenomena that elude algorithmic testing can still be tested. There's
no algorithm for determining whether content is understandable, for
example, but it's still possible to test whether or not people
understand it, and it's possible for those tests to be rigorous and
systematic; it's even possible to use numerican values to express the
raters' judgments, and it's possible to achieve high degrees of
inter-rater reliability (i.e., agreement among raters). That such
judgments are not "objective" in the narrow sense of that term does not
mean that they're invalid.
John
-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Michael Cooper
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 7:34 AM
To: WAI GL (E-mail)
Subject: [techs] Summary of Techniques teleconference 19 November 2003
PRESENT
Janae Andershonis
Ben Caldwell
Michael Cooper
David Donovan
David MacDonald
Chris Ridpath
Lisa Seeman
DISCUSSION
Web page testing - we discussed a thread that had started on the WCAG
mailing list about untestable success criteria, which overlaps greatly
with
our work. Some of the success criteria are untestable because they lack
an
algorithm, and our ability to create an algorithm might be part of the
definition of testability. Janae noted that the Open Accessibility
Checks
Chris has been working [1] on might be "atomic tests" in the QA Glossary
[2]. We continued a discussion of whether these checks could become a
WAI-sanctioned way of validating and supporting WCAG 2.0, and had a lot
of
questions. It seems that a recharted Evaluation and Repair Tools group
would
be the place to take this work. Some of this discussion also raised
questions of mapping - between techniques and guidelines, and between
old
and new guidelines.
ACTION ITEMS
Chris: follow up with group working on testable success criteria
Janae: summarize QA WG stuff so we can figure out how to plug into our
work
Michael, Ben, David: map HTML techniques to current WCAG
Lisa: prepare draft of RDF techniques for December 10 telecon
REFERENCES
[1] http://www.aprompt.ca/oac/
[2] http://www.w3.org/QA/glossary
--- Signature ---
Michael Cooper
Accessibility Product Manager, Watchfire
1 Hines Rd, Kanata, ON K2K 3C7 Canada
Tel: +1 (613) 599-3888 x4019
Fax: +1 (613) 599-4661
Email: michaelc@watchfire.com
Web: http://www.watchfire.com/